Litigation & crime follow humans into cyberspace

Wired News reports that a Pennsylvania man has sued a San Francisco firm over a land deal gone sour in Second Life — a virtual realm where people create avatars to represent themselves and trade imaginary assets as part of their online lives.

Chronicle

Linden Lab founder Philip Rosedale explores a Second Life.

Second Life is created by San Francisco’s Linden Lab. It is one of a genre of so-called massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs). These online computer constructs have become increasingly realistic in their graphic presentation — and increasingly important to their players, who often spend real-world money to buy status or “property” in these make-believe places. Last year I wrote a story that used Second Life to explore the economic dimensions of MMOGs.

What will happen now that this virtual playground has sparked a real court case? The best place to follow developments may be in the Second Life Herald, the e-paper of this imaginary domain. The Herald ran a story about the lawsuit more than a week ago.

Today the Herald wrote about a town hall meeting to discuss how Linden Lab plans to deal with malicious hackers who have apparently been crashing the computer grid that supports the roughly 220,000 patrons of Second Life. The Herald has previously reported that Linden Lab asked the FBI to investigate a hacking incident in December.